kamika english intro[1]

8/10/2019 Kamika English Intro[1]

1/6


2/6

g ~ ~ i d a n c ef Prof. Jean Filliozat is engaged in the stup end outask of colie~tingand publishing the available Agam as oney

one? but the editing is in F rench, As im portant and valuableas all these are7 he efforts of the SouthIndian Archakar Sangamto reprint and publish someof the Agamas for th e benefitof the Archakars and the public are praiseworthy. Th e Sangamhas already made some progress inspite of heavy odds. It is apity that although the secular control of temples have been underGovernment for over5 years now? he reprinting of the Agamas,even with temple funds? has not been given serious attentionto upto this date, The Agamas are encyclopaedic in theircontents, covering rituals and phi osophy, and are the store-

house of temple arts9 architecture7 music and dance which areof fascinating interest to many.

Many have only vague notions about the Agamas as evenbooks on Indian Philosophy and Religions pay very scant atten-tion to them (except perhaps D r. S. N. Dasgupta9sbook Historyof Indian Phi losophy~Vol V). For the information of theignorantand the biased it has to be explained here that inpoint of chronology the Agamas are as ancient as the Vedas

and they are both acknowledged as Divine Revalationfrom

from the mouth of God. They are both sabda pramanaand lead to avabudha jnan a (self-luminious knowledge). Alltheistic religious like Saivis n~and Vaisnavism (including theMadhva Vaisnavism) respect the Agamas and base their the010gical doctrines on them . Th e monistic Advaita relied only on theUpan ishads with monistic trends for its metaphysics. Thejnanapada of Agamas? are more explicit and indeed Svetars-vatara upanished is sometimes called Agamic upanishad.The difference and distinction between the Vedas. and the

Agamas are that while the Vedas spoke of many Gods and ofone Brahman? the Agamas are ou t an d out monotheistic andtl~ eir ontology is no less profound. Sank ara Samhita ofSkanda Pur ana speaksof the relation of the Vedas and Agamasthus Vedas are in the middle of the mou th, th e Aksharas are

iii

the teeth and theAgamas a re from the very tong ue of Siva< asya madhyz sthitha veda devadevasya bhasura?aksharam

t u dautam ji@vayam u Sivjnana1. Later Saints like Tirumularin hi s '~ iru m an dr am hich is considered to be the essence othe Agamas and Manikavachagar and Nammalvar (both Saivand Vaisnava) an d scholiasts like Har adatta 9 Srikantha , Sivagrayogin Sivajnanasw a~ni nd Appaya Dikshita have lookeupon Vedas as comm on and the Agamas as specific as th e lattare for all irrespective o f caste and sex that yearn for thedescent of the Grace of Siva (saktin@iida). Th e Agamas arsynthetic-mantra? tantra and siddahanta, and embrace charykriya9yoga and jn ana pad as. What is more? they provide forthe sacrament of diksa9 ordinary and special? besides thggyatri for svartha and par arth a puja, No one witholitAgamic diksa can per fos n~ ny puja at home or in th e templHenc e a knowledge of the Agamas is necessary to all alikif they wish to take the sacrament ofdilcs for a divine oficeor for self salvation..

The present publication of Kamikagama? Piirvabhaga,Part1 by the South Indian Archakar Sangam, Madras (whichhas within its fold. -both Saiva and Vaisnava archak as) is tbe welcomed and encouraged. This volume gives the Agamtext in grantha script togetherwith tiitparya (gist) in Tamilfor the bensfit of all.One patala alone has been transliteratedin Tainil but no t others. (The Sangam has already publis1lethe entire Parvabhaga ill Devanagari script). The contentof the presen t vo l~ ~m ere briefly given in its preface,The Ta ntrsv atara patala gives the orig in of the AgamasThe Mantravatara patala gives an accountof the mantras.The rest of the patalas give a detailed account of the variourit~ ials nd their significance.

Kgmikagama is one of the longestAgamas and most ofthe temples in So ~i th ndia follow it only. It is looked up o8s the feetof Siva. It deals w ith all the rituals from karshaBa


3/6


4/6

earlier than these later Upanisads in point of timeand the Aga~iias were much more alive and vibrating

with life and activity than the Upanisads, becausethey dealt with definite and concrete objects, while

the others dealt only with abstract concepts. Thevery fact that some later Upanisads came to bewritten shows that the followers of the originalUpanisads had to take note of agamic thoughts and,to bring them also into a single common fold,adopted the device of writing further Upanisads, toembrace fresh thought on the same subject. The

Saiva Upanisads such as Brhudjubulu did certainlycome into existence a long time after the Agamas-

The Agamas claim Vedic authority for theirdoctrines. The agama doctrines are indeed theisticand such theism is not foreign to the Upanisads.The following agamic passages may be seen to affirmthe derivation of the Agamas from the Vedas

The siddhanta consists of the essence of the Veda

(Suprabhedagama) ; his tantra is of the essence ofthe vedas ; This siddhanta knowledge which is thesignificance of Vedanta is supremely good Mulzutu).It has been suggested that the agamic systems weredeveloped out of the Brahmanas in the same way asthe Upanisads, though at a much later stage, and thatsome of the later Upanisads like the Svetasvatarawhich address the Supreme Being by a sectarian titleand not as Param Brahman, as of yore, probably grewup under the shadow of the Agamas. The agamiccult which w s that of the generality of the people,and the Vedic cult which was that of th priestly

classes, officiating for themselves or for others , wereboth indigenous ; they existed and grew up side byside from the earliest times without any extraneousinfluence ; the distinction between the two was in nosense racial- The Agamas are deemed to have scrip-tural authority and are often called the Veda and theFifth Veda, As a niatter of fact, although the SanskritNighuntu names the Veda as the Nigumu an d theTantra as the Agama the Veda and the Agama bothseem to have been denoted by the common tern1 srut iup to the X century, afte r whicli period the abovedistinction of Nigama and Agama seems t have beenadopted. The againic (tantric) texts, as we knowthen1 today, had for the most part preceded Bud dl ~i sm ~and only the agam ic cult had been able gradually toswallow up Buddhism on the Indian sub-cont inent,and ultimately to bahish i t idtogether from the Indiansoil ; it was not the Upanisadic philosophy but theagamic cult that was responsible for the supplanting

of Buddliism and for the fusion of the salient featuresinto the core of the Hindu religion.

Several explanatioi~s have been offered for theterm aga7nu. One is that because it en~a nat ed romGod, it is called the Agaman hat which came (fromGod). Another is that the three letters a-ga-marespectively denote pati, pusu and pasa (the self9 thesoul and the bonds) and that the agama deals with allthese three entities and their relationship, and liencethis name.

A Sanskrit verse gives an interesting meaningfor the three syllables a, ga and mu


5/6

viii

A ga ta ~n iva vul~trebhyuhy atam cu girija mukhe,Matam cu sivu bhaktanam? agamam cheti kafyate.

The agamas originated from the faces of Siva9fell on the ears of Parasakti and spread in th e worldas the matu of the Siva bhak tas. The agamas taketheir name from the first letters of the words agutum(originated), guturn (fell) and mutam (religion).

The common noun agumu simply means comingor acquisition.

But in the Saiva schoolya special root meaningis indicated for the term.

I t is given as a-knowledge, ga-libesatiofi andma-removal of the bonds. The agarna came to becalled as suchy since a study and adherence to itscodes liberates the sot11 from bondage, causes reali-sation of the Supreme, and ultimately confersEternal Bliss.

Agamas are common to the three prominentschools and they a re called Agama in SaivismSamhita in Vaishnavism and Tantr a in Saktaisiii.

The aga im s had not been quite popular illNo rth India for the simple reason that they were allwritten in palm leaf manu script in the grunthacharacters which were unknown in the north*The ir script was th e nafuri, However? the Sivagama

Paripalana Sangham of Devakottai published someUpagamas in the nagari script. Th e French Institute

1 lndology in Pondicherry are now publishing aseries of agam as in the nagariscript They have so

lx

far published pasts of the AjtJzu> Raurvava a u lMrg ef~ d ru ~Their M atunga is to be released soo nn

They have been able to secure 23 o ~ i t f t he 8principal agamas.

The agamas have the -greatest currency in theTamil c o~i ntry . The great Prof*S. N. Dassguptahas stated that not a single manuscript of in ~p or ta i~ ceis available in' Banaras9 considered the greatest seatof Sanskrit culture. It therefore goes without sayingtha t th e Saivagainas have been a rase an d special

preserve of the Sivachasyas in Tamilnad. Alltemple worship$ festivalsy installation, con secr atio~ letc.? are here done according to the agamas. hethousands of temples in this country are standingi ~ l o n u m e ~ ~ t so the prevalence of the agam ic cultfrom the ages past down to the present day.

Each Agai~ ia as a number of s~ ~b si di ar ygamascalled Upagamas and their number is207* Amongthe Upagamas the Pau sl~k aru nd the Mrgerzdru arewell know n. Th e princi pal agatmas being w ith Kumilcaand end with Vatzdu. Each aganias has th e fo urparts or padas called Vidyu, Kriya, Yogaand Churyu.Th e Vidyupada is the phiiosophical par t while theKriyu pada is the rit~ia listic past- The other twoparts are generally very short. he Kriyupuda of theKumiku ugamu has been the most w ellknown pa rt inTam ilnad. This is one of the largest ofthe known

agamas. It is said to represent the Feet of Siva.ItsKriyapada alone has been printed, in two parts, bythe Sivajnaiiab odh~ ress, in 1901. The total numberof verses in it are 12.0008made up i s follows: p u r ~ a


6/6

5166 Uttara-6477 ; verses lost 357. The teim Kamikameans he object desired ; the term Kumikaga~zais said to signify the Book which grants the desiredobject to the souls 'and helps them to final releasethrough severance of bonds': The Kamika is theagama which is'widely in use today . Sivacharyas saythat its authority derives from the fact that it alwaysprescribes the rules very definitely, saying this andnot that .

The Purva Kam ikai-the first part was published

with a Tamil translation done by Visveswara Sastri ofTiruvottiyur. It h a s four sections dealingwith therevelation of the agamas, rules for daily observanceand worship, rules for the construction of templesand houses and for performance of rituals and rulesfor theinstallation of the deities.

\

The Karnilca published by S hanm ugasund araMud aliar had long been out of print and most of the

present generation could never have set its eyes on it.Th e non-availability of this Kriyapada text wasnaturally a great handicaps to the earnestarchulcawho wanted really to study the scripture and followit in the temple's rituals. The South Indian ArchakarAssociation~throughts Secretary ShriC waminathaSivacharya published in February 1976 the Kriyapadatext alone in the nagari script. This no doub tmade the text available to Sanskrit scholars butthe entire bulk of the Sivacharyas could no t useit because they knew only the grantha script.Realising this, the association hasnow brought outa handsome volume of the Kriyapada, past I in the

^rantha script with a complete paraphrase in theTamil language, chapter by chapter, in about 48

pages. Th e wealth of the information and guidancecontained in this pa rt cannot be brought ou t inashort introdu ction. Suffice it to say that anarchakawho has no t made every line in this book his owndoes not know his job. Archakas hereafter donot have any execuse to say that they do not knowany ritual connected with Siva worship. Th e volumeis an encyclopaedia which will reward even anySaiva for a careful scrutiny.

In these days of high paper prices a nd highlabour charges Shr i Swaminatha Gurukka l has donea great service to the cult of temple worship, andt h e archaka comm unity by publishing this volum e .I t i s t h e duty of the Hind u Religious EndowmentsBoard to see that some copies are in the libraryof temples and to supply copies also to the~ rc h a k a s ' mmediate distribution of the book willgive the necessary enthusiasm a nd encouragement tothe aged G urukkal to publish further volumes ofagamas.

kamika english intro[1]

Documents